RICHARD JOHNSON: ‘Law & Order: SVU’ star Mariska Hargitay to be honored

“Law & Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay will be honored by Audrey Gruss, the founder of the Hope for Depression Research Foundation (HDRF), at their 18th Annual Luncheon at the Plaza Hotel on Nov. 12.
Previous honorees include Dakota Johnson, Anderson Cooper and Michael Phelps.
Gruss shared the news at a cocktail party for the organization’s Junior Committee at Double’s, the private club in the Sherry-Netherland hotel headed by Wendy Carduner.
The party featured a pajama fashion show hosted by Elizabeth Meigher,  Gillian Hearst and Melissa Breitbart.
Earlier in the month, Meigher’s father Christopher Meigher, the publisher of Quest magazine, and its diarist David Patrick Columbia welcomed Martha Stewart, Deborah Norville, Somers Farkas and Margo Langenberg, who are all on the publication’s prestigious 400 List of notable New Yorkers.
Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was also on hand receiving kudos for his new bestseller “Risks and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life,” which was given out to the departing guests.
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Eric Roberts, Cathy Moriarty and John Savage all were in films nominated for Best Picture Oscars. Now they are in movie together, “Beyond the Rush,” written and directed by Rob Sayegh.
“I wrote the story as a senior in high school,” Sayegh told me. “Thirty-two years later it’s a feature film.”
Sayegh helped finance the film about drug abuse and child sex perversion. “I put up all my own money, over a million dollars. I sold all my crypto and all my stock.”
Moriarty, Oscar nominated for her work “Raging Bull,” said, “He put his heart and soul and his whole entire life into it.”
Eric Roberts, who was nominated for “Runaway Train,” said, “I play a guy who is totally nuts. It was a day at camp for me.”
The self-effacing actor joked he is still impaired from a 1981 car accident that put him in a coma for three days. “I’m told I have some brain damage, but that’s okay.”
Asked if his sister Julia Roberts was okay with his recently published memoir, “Runaway Train: or, The Story of My Life So Far,” Roberts said, “I haven’t talked to her about it.”
His wife Eliza told me, “She’d let us know if she were upset.”
Savage said,” There’s so much humanity in this film. It’s a love story.”
An activist who worked to end apartheid in South Africa, Savage is the proud grandfather of Zoltan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.
Of his top-notch cast, Sayegh said, “I was blessed and grateful they’d even looked at my script.”
“Beyond the Rush” opens Nov. 9, Veterans Day, at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival.
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Kate Hudson thinks fashion “empowers women with not just clothes but confidence.”
She was honoring Max Mara at the Plaza Tuesday night for the Fashion Group International’s Night of Stars Gala.
FGI President Maryanne Grisz says “We’ve been honoring the best of the best for forty years.”
Out on the red carpet Zac Posen said he looks for “flair” and “pizazz.”
Dennis Basso thinks fashion means more today than it did 40 years ago “because the young people are focused and interesting.” He also thinks fashion was more “pigeonholed, but today anything goes.”
Nicky Hilton Rothschild likes simple stuff. “In Venice last summer I wore a black satin dress with a really stunning tuxedo jacket.” Okay, that’s her simple.
Others there to honor tasteful taffeta and smart schmattas included designers Elie Tahari and Stan Herman, model Coco Rocha, State Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright, TikTok phenom Dixie D’Amelio and the always fashionable philanthropist Jean Shafiroff who declared her dress “Kardashian style, it’s almost too sheer.”
And about the night that helps discover new talent? Shafiroff got serious: “You might be sitting beside the next Coco Chanel or Karl Lagerfeld.”
Then she daintily picked up her 10-foot train and headed for the ballroom.
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Steven Maglio of East Harlem and Debi Maldonado of Astoria both moved to The Bronx and first met while attending Herbert H. Lehman High School.
They married in 1984, moved to New Jersey, and had four children and five grandchildren. They will re-enact their wedding at his “NOT Just Sinatra” show at The Cutting Room on Thursday.
After his set, Steven will come off the stage to join his wife, Debi, in the middle of the nightclub.
Surrounded by their children and friends serving as witnesses, they will pledge the same vows they made 40 years ago.
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Alec Baldwin got off scot-free after accidentally shooting the cinematographer on his movie “Rust.” But his rookie armorer is seven months into an 18-month sentence for the death of Halyna Hutchins.
Jason Goldman, who represents Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, said it is shameful that his client is incarcerated while Baldwin, who fired the gun, is free.
“His legal team was able to get a look at what the evidence was because she was tried first,” Goldman said. “She had an unfair shake.”
Baldwin’s six-shooter was supposed to be loaded with blanks, but fired a live round.
Goldman is planning to appeal. “Overturning the conviction is important. We think the jury got it wrong.”
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Barbie, the first grown-up doll, was ahead of the times when she hit it big in the ‘60s.
A new show, “Barbie: A Cultural Icon,” at the Museum of Arts and Design shows that Barbie is Black and Hispanic, disabled and blind, with hair of every hue and length, including one Barbie who was completely bald.
At a dinner party dance on Wednesday, Robert Best, v.p. of Barbie Product Design at Mattel, was honored for his decades of service and spoke about the importance of inclusivity.
Madonna’s 12-year-old daughter Estere dee-jayed for the likes of Francine LeFrak and Rick Friedberg, and Todd Cohen and Rebecca Hessel Cohen of LoveShackFancy fame.
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Out & About: Omar Hernandez will kick off the Halloween season Oct. 25 at his OHLALA supper club at La Goulue on East 61st Street … Shoe designer Vanessa Noel celebrated her birthday at her store on East 64th Street with jeweler Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, divorce lawyer Ken Jewel, socialite Susan Gutfreund and dermatologist Dr. Howard Sobel … Leonardo DiCaprio, Billie Eilish, Mariah Carey and Adam Sandler are a few of the stars who have enjoyed meals by caterer Andrea Correale of Elegant Affairs. Now, for the first time, everyone with money can eat like a celebrity over the holidays by ordering at EACateringtogo.com.